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Factory in Baku sim, where the W-Hats churn out alleged griefers (click for larger image on Flickr)

In the wake of recent attacks on the virtual world of Second Life, it only makes sense that Linden Lab should move against those it holds responsible, banning them from its world. But the action raises serious questions about community, privacy, transparency and even art, as well as the delicate task Linden Lab faces of maintaining its service while also attempting to build a “world.” One of those may have to fall by the wayside, and you can guess which it’s likely to be. [UPDATE: See below for response to an earlier email I sent to Linden Lab asking for more detail. A heartening response at that.] (more…)

Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world of Second Life, banned 60 accounts this week over what amounted to two distributed denial-of-service attacks perpetrated on the same day. The attacks, which involved seeding the SL Grid with self-replicating objects which soon choked off processing power, forced Linden Lab to disable much of SL for long periods on Monday. Past attacks have shut the Grid down altogether. Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale, reported the banned accounts in an audio Town Hall meeting held Tuesday. (more…)

With the 2006 Burning Man Project marking its first steps into 3pointD territory via Google Earth, Second Life’s annual homage to the event is already well established and has enjoyed an exceptional amount of coverage this year thanks to GavinLeigh Wake’s Burninglife.com. And yet while the glowing embers of the festival fade to black perhaps we might take one last opportunity to work the bellows. The theme this year was ‘The Future: Hope and Fear’. At the time of the event it wasn’t going to be ‘the future’ until the event was over, so it seems appropriate to discuss it now-er, yeah. A few builders may have also mistook the theme to read ‘Ambivalence: Ban Lines and Plywood’, however that’s not to say the festival was devoid of compelling experiences. Far from it.

At its best Burning Life, like any time-certain event in Second Life, is intensified by its ephemerality and the knowledge that hundreds of person hours of avatar effort will at some point implode to inventory or scatter throughout the grid. What sets it apart is its subject matter, where residents have the potential to be not merely amused but also confronted by deeper and more personal visions on the part of the creators. For a brief time the playa is a condenser, saturated with inspiration and perspiration, where boundaries are drawn on the endless asymmetric expanse of the mind, creating a momentary compound from which to contemplate the world and our place within it.

These qualities were exemplified, even amplified, in funhaus Stilman. (more…)